


Rubix Cube

by IzzyMarrie



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst, Drama, Kidnapping, Slenderman - Freeform, Stockholm Syndrome, Supernatural - Freeform, The Operator - Freeform, totheark - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7365436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyMarrie/pseuds/IzzyMarrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>What makes life flow?  What makes our hearts beat?<br/>The simple answer is the blood in our veins,<br/>the signals to our brain that keeps the organ moving.</p>
  <p>In a world where men can become puppets without their knowledge,<br/>and lose their minds to forces beyond their control,<br/>enter the quadrant of sorrow,<br/>where two men in particular, Jay and Tim, are at a stand-still,<br/>questioning their life choices,<br/>all-the-while a faceless Operator pulls their strings.</p>
  <p>You are you, but in the end, who are you?</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ceremony

#  **"Rubix Cube (part 2)"**

####  Written by: 

####  Sara Hervey (aka: IzzyMarrie, or 'The Major' )

 

####  **NOT**  to be used without MY permission

#####  **Disclaimers:   ****Marble Hornets belongs to the THAC crew**

  
**R &R.  Enjoy** **!**   


 

 _"I'm not trying to find someone to blame,_

 _there is nothing that can be done about that anyway._

 _To tell you the truth, I am too tired to care."_

 

 

            The night sky carried the light of a thousand stars, and with it, reminders of our distant past.  To one man in particular, the night sky always held a place of wonder in his boyish heart.  In a time long before the crazy man hunt, the frivolous game of hide and seek that's taken on a twisted new meaning, a boy named Jay would sit in his pajamas in his room looking up at the vast deep night through a telescope.  

            The times, however, have changed.  Before he even knew where to go, Jay had driven non-stop for over an hour trying to escape the man wearing the mask who'd broken into his hotel room and chased him all the way to the parking lot.  Of course, by the time he reached his car, the man was no where to be found, although that didn't help Jay's jumbled nerves as he climbed into his seat and drove off.  Destination be damned, he had to _run._

            Time had passed, and before long, the smell of wet forest somehow became so clear through his car window, the fragile man had been startled awake, frightened that the tall, faceless creature, or the masked men, had found him and dragged him back into the trees.  

            Jay clutched the small piece of paper bearing the combination to the safe that was in his room, a safe containing a large amount of tapes.  It was left for him to find by the masked man.  This much, he knew for sure, although the question as to  _why_  the man had left it, and just where was the girl in the adjoining room, still rang loudly in his head.

            Meanwhile, the steady tapping of rain against another man's roof as he clutched his head in confusion would force him to make a decision.  The black outs _had_ to stop.  He was seeking help in the morning, right after he called his job.

 

 

_"Disconnect me from the server,_

_but it's like unplugging life support,_

_and even though you are a stranger,_

_I do not care."_

 

 

            Fast forward about two years, the man who was holding his head in agony all those years past now stood at his kitchen counter, staring down at the faucet as if it were some creature and his glare would hold it into place.  He groaned, finally turning on the water and filling his coffee pot so he could try and start his day.

            It wasn't easy, getting up, moving about to find purpose, however small, _other_ than the waiting game he had taken up with Jay and the hooded maniac stalking them.

            "You’re a liar. You had that tape for how long?  And you never told me!"

            But something about this man―

            "Wait, Tim, just leave my camera.  Leave my camera, I need it!"

            ―is just how stubborn he really is.

  
            "Give it to me!  Tim!"

            Then again, maybe it was Tim who under-estimated just how stubborn Jay could be.  It's almost funny, as if Jay were some kind of enigma instead of a human being.  Tim had been making a lot of mistakes lately.  Leaving the man alone was obviously one of them.  Sixteen days, nothing had happened.  Seventeenth day, of course the moment he let his guard down, everything he worked so hard to protect would shatter.

            The sun shining through the blinds was bright, and a steady headache worked through Tim's nerves as he reached into his pocket and grabbed his last pill bottle.  He popped a pill, dry swallowing and sitting himself down onto a chair in front of his kitchen table while he waited for his coffee to brew.   _Jay's a grown man.  He can take care of himself._

 

 

_"The two of us, what is left, until we reach the end,_

_and what it holds, I hope is something worth living for._

_Is she even out there?_

_Is this maybe my fault?"_

 

  
      Rewind a year, and two men sat together in silence the night before Christmas.  Although neither would admit it, both men enjoyed the other's company.  Times had fallen hard on both of them, that much is for sure, and even though Tim had almost hated Jay after he had found out he was posting things about his life that were best left forgotten, he couldn't help but feel a sort of kinship to him now.  After-all, Jay might've been an idiot for the most part, never thinking how his actions might affect others, but he had a lot of heart, and Tim knew he never meant him harm.

            Jay, on the other hand, almost felt safe for the first time in years, even if the idea was rather ridiculous.  Any sane person would stay the hell away from the man who stalked you, intimidated you through cryptic videos online, broke into your own home back when you had one . .  but nothing about this situation they were in was normal, and immediately after realizing Tim was just another victim whose mind had been tampered with, he'd forgiven him almost instantly.  The idea of another human being to talk to other than his . .  followers . .  online . .  it was nice, after-all.  It almost made him feel less like the lone hero who's bound for disaster in one of his old mystery novels, and more like a human being who doesn't have to bear this burden of life alone.  Somehow, that made the long, dark road ahead that much easier to bear, even if it was just in the slightest.

            However, Tim didn't understand just _why_ Jay felt so attached to his camera in the first place, to his followers online who were obviously more enthralled with the mystery than the makeshift detective, himself.  He could emphasize, but even that only went so far.  Jay sometimes took his obsession with recording himself too far, spending hours not getting any sleep and forgetting to eat while he reviewed his tapes.  Memory loss, oh Tim knew how frightening that could be first hand, but when you're scratching out paragraphs of nonsense to try and figure out a code some masked stalker wearing a hoody was posting online just for the hope it gave a hint to something important, Tim drew the line.  Jay was frustrating, deteriorating as his obsession grew, and yet . .  Tim didn't exactly argue or call out his obvious lie when he called 6 in the morning saying he found something important on one of those old tapes.

 

 

 _"There's a lot, I'm sure, I could say,_

 _but I know you'll think I'm an idiot anyway,_

 _which is funny because I think you're right."_  

 

  
            Fast forward, and Jay was held up in his hotel.  It was much dingier than any room he's ever stayed in.   _Rock bottom._   Jay wiped the crust from his eyes, trembling all of a sudden when a cold chill shot up his arms and spine.  He became paranoid instantly, running to the window and pulling back the curtains.  He looked, and looked, but no one was there.

            He drew back the blinds, black curtains falling down and cloaking the room in darkness.  It's day light out, but the outside world was just too intimidating, too taxing on his tired mind to deal with.

            Retreating back to his bed, Jay sat his laptop back onto his lap and opened the lid.  He quickly minimized a word document that he had up, and let out a sigh.  The wifi there wasn't free, and he had to do some questionable things just to make sure he had enough, namely, steal from some poor old lady's purse who kept giving him dirty looks.  He didn't feel good doing it, but it was a last resort.

            Opening up internet explorer, Jay sighed as he had to wait for his tabs to load.  He wasn't exactly patient, but he was persistent, like a junkie looking to get his fix.  He told himself that he'd give it a rest at four that morning, but he needed to know if there's been any response to the video he posted the day before.  Signing onto Twitter in one tab, signing onto Youtube in another . .  to his disappointment, the answer was 'no'.  Well, not exactly true.  

            His followers seemed interested, some calling him crazy even.  What do they know?  He's not crazy.  Tim is crazy.  Alex, his old friend, the madman who KILLED some stranger, he's crazy.  The man wearing the hoody, ironically, like him, may be less crazy than what everyone was giving him credit for.  After all, out of all the people Jay's been in contact with over the years, he's the only one who hadn't lied.

            But still, just because he pushed him to see the truth, that didn't make him his savior, either.  Memories of sleeping in his car, he only remembered what he saw on the tape, but outside filming him was that very man who would wait over seven months just to make a creepy video opening up with a lung being pumped and screeching audio over the footage he shot that night.

            Jay thought back to last Christmas, how he called Tim, first at four a.m., and then later at seven, and how Tim ran over in a panic.  He looked a little pissed at first, realizing that nothing was wrong, but to tell the truth, over the years, Christmas was what hurt him the most, having no one to talk to, and Tim, he was willing to humor him.

            Later that night after finally giving up on the code he was obsessing over, he was shaking when he said, "I'm scared Tim.  I think I'm losing my mind."  Tim went quiet, taking a long drag from his cigarette.  Tim didn't seem to like the holidays either, and from the little he knew about Tim's past, he couldn't imagine how hard it must've been on him.  

            "Yeah, well, we better go find it then."  

            Back then, Jay couldn't help but smile softly, shaking his head, but now Jay simply closed his eyes, wondering if maybe after all the years of feeling awkward, he finally belonged.  Everyone he was now directly involved with was either insane, or dead.  

            "Oh yeah, search and rescue mission 101," Jay had said, and Tim laughed, adding, "Can you tell me if you see mine?" 

_Yeah._  Jay thought, shutting down his computer and jumping to take a shower.   _I'll get right on that._

 

 

_"But you never tell me I am wrong,  
_

_outwardly shaking and saying it's your fault,_

_but you're only half right."_

 

 

            Tim was busy getting his nicotine fix in his living room when he suddenly started to think back to when him and Jay went to their old college town.  It was actually terrifying, realizing just how close Alex was to closing in on them.  Tim also remembered his confession, telling Jay how back when he was a kid, he was locked up in a mental hospital.  Tim stubbed out his cigarette and stared down the foot of his bed at his wall.  A murderer was on the loose who had his child-hood nightmare protecting him, but confessing his inner-most demons to some stranger pretty much was what scared him most.  Logic told him what he should be more afraid of, but that didn't stop his hair from standing on end when it came time to tell Jay what he had already suspected.

            Tim _hated_ being there at that hospital.  It brought back more memories of being a kid, scared and abandoned, scratching at the walls late at night and wondering why no one believed that the tall man was after him . .  "Timothy Wright!  Stop it!  Please baby, stop it.   Stop crying.  You can't go outside."  How his mother hated him and kept bringing him there when he didn't belong there . .  "There's no one here honey.  Just me.  Shut up!  Why do you keep doing this to mommy?"  But it felt appropriate somehow, coming back to tell his secret.  It was hard for him, and Jay, he only held that camera and kept filming.  

            Tim had kept his distance for weeks while considering if he should tell him or not.  He didn't belong there, at that old hospital, that's what he would tell himself, but after a long time thinking, Tim felt Jay was just as much in this mess as him now and so he begged Jay to go with him, and in those burnt halls, rubble at their feet, he cried, "What if this is all my fault?"  

  
            It wasn't always like that.  Opening up was something Tim just wasn't used to, and Jay, oh _Jay_ would've been on the bottom of his list if it weren't for . .  how desperate he was.  After he viewed the tapes Jay uploaded of him, he started to wonder if maybe those hallucinations weren't really in his head after all, and the guilt tore him from the inside.  It also made him angry.

  
            But circumstances changed.  After calling Jay to a parking lot and decking him in the face, it wasn't long before that crazy man from the 'totheark' videos, the youtube counterpart to Jay's 'marblehornets', started breaking into his home, somehow his medical records turned up in the maintenance tunnel for Jay to find, and both of them ended up waking in Rosswood park near some shack where a tape was slipped into his jean pocket proving he worked at some point with that psychopath and . .

           It would be funny, if it wasn't so sad.  Here he was trying his best to live a normal life, but he couldn't even manage that.  Eleven years old and tied to his bed, little Tim was screaming as his mother cried, "Why hunny?  Why can't you just _try_  and be good?"  But there was the monster, right there right in the corner.  It was standing there staring at him with no face and it was RIGHT there!

            Jay wasn't scared of him.  Although he never turned off his camera, the quiet way he told him that he didn't need to worry about that now had seemed less cold coming from the man who barely spoke.  Tim always knew deep down that he was messed up, but he never wanted to believe it, and here was Jay, someone who he punched not long before and swore he'd have nothing to do with _,_   _Jay,_  who he remembered in bits and pieces of distorted memories watching and attacking while wearing a mask . .  was trying to make  _him_ feel better.

  
            That was why he told him "No more lies", even though he wasn't stupid.  He knew with-holding the truth was just the same as lying, but he didn't know _how_ to explain what happened to Jessica, the girl Jay hardly knew but was determined to save.  All he knew was that she was safe now and that they both just needed to move on.

            "It's not my fault . . " Tim reassured himself, hunched over on the couch and gripping his hair.  But then something caught the corner of his eye . .

            Outside Tim's home, Jay ducked down in the bushes. Tim peered out his window, but failed to spot him, and Jay was safe, for the moment.  Sixteen days of hate and agony, a month of not knowing what to do, and now here he was, stalking the one he had once called his friend.  Meanwhile, Tim, seeing nothing, roughly shut his blinds, and Jay couldn't help but wonder . . _How'd I even get here?_ anddraw his arms around his knees.   _What was I hoping to do?_

 

 

_"The two of us, what is left, until we reach the end,_

_and what it holds, I hope is something worth living for._

_Is she even out there?_

__Is this maybe my fault?"_ _

 

 

            Back at the hotel, Jay's stomach had started to hurt.  He hadn't eaten in a while, and all this stress had really started to take a toll on him.  However, the thought of food made him want to hurl and so he put his hands over his stomach and keeled over.  

            "You're a liar.  You had that tape for how long?  And you never told me!"

            "I knew if you saw it now, you’d blame me for Jessica disappearing and that would make finding Alex even harder."

            Jay started to wonder whether he was wrong for lunging at Tim like he did.  Then he laughed bitterly, just for a moment as the tears slowly started to fall.  It certainly didn't do him any good.  Crumbled into himself, camera held close like a security blanket, he wondered  _Is it too late to say I'm sorry?_

Jay snickered.  Memories of just  _how good_  of a liar Tim's become rattled inside his brain, and he started to cough, hard.  He was still trying to wrap around how long Tim had known about that tape, and just what else he could be keeping from him.

            "Just tell me where she is!"

            "I don't know any more than you do.  I don't even remember the parts that  _were_ on that tape.  You should know that!"

            No, Jay  _shouldn't_  know that.  Why should he have to assume Tim is anything like him anymore, that they have  _anything_ , no matter how small, in common, but . .  Jay remembered, the frantic calls to Tim's cell that he never answered, how he went on his own to Rosswood park and crossed over into some tunnel, somehow, someway ending up in a place so wrong, how he'd already forgiven Tim . .  but no!  The painful seizure that faceless monster induced had left him so _angry_ for some reason, and that reason . .   He left there  _knowing_ Tim was to blame.

            "The way I see it, there's two possibilities.  One, she is dead, in which case there's nothing we can do―"

      
            "It wouldn't be my fault!―"

  
            "Two, she is still alive and if she is, we cannot go anywhere near her, especially not you!"

            Tim had been lying to him from the start, using him for his sick game.  Jay's knuckles were white from squeezing the sheets.  But something he said―

            "You could be followed, or you could show where she is on your camera or something like that and she would get dragged into this all over again."

            What if Tim was right after-all?  He laughed again, darker, lower, certainly more dry than the world outside soaked in sun light.  _There's a word for this,_  he thought.   _Stockholm._   He had to accept the fact, Tim was the same man now as when he wore the mask.  
              
            At the same time, Tim was staring at his reflection, rolling his eyes and letting out an exasperated groan.  What exactly was he thinking?  "What am I doing? . . " Tim breathed, staring down at his bathroom sink.  He shook his head, and smiled bitterly.  

            Well before him and Jay started to form a bond, well before it was them against Alex and the world, Tim was waking up one night after a terrifying dream of the hooded man hovering over his bed.  He had just walked back into his room after splashing his face with water and saw him climb through the window and running across his yard.  His windows didn't lock, and he'd taken up sleeping in his living room for a while until finally keeping his craft knife in his spare pill box in his bedroom.  It was the same knife he used to cut himself with. 

            The police didn't help out much, and Tim was too damn stubborn to board up his windows and hell, his land lord probably wouldn't have appreciated it either.  All those nights ago, he'd called his psychiatrist, saying how his headaches were getting worse and how he needed to see him.  That was when the hooded man broke in through his window, stole his pills, and somehow brought the monster with him and filmed as he convulsed on the floor.

             It was only later that Tim would wonder why in the hell that man would write 'HE IS A LIAR' on the walls of his old hospital and 'FOLLOW ME' to get Jay's attention and lead to his medical records, but then redact most of what was written in them if he wanted to hurt him?  Was he just waiting to do something more drastic like cause him the seizure and film it?  

            The torn up paper, the smell of nature and lack of care and continued neglect, Tim had waken up face down in the dirt while Jay was propped inside with his camera facing him.  Jay sure as hell didn't have to take that psychopath's bait.  He didn't _need_ to run into the woods, using his pediatric papers as a clue.  Oh God, but what killed Tim the most was after he viewed the footage with Jay, a chill ran down his spine when he saw himself wearing the mask.  He had no memory of it, but here was the proof of him smothering Jay and God knows what else after the camera glitched out and they woke up at that shack.

            Jay had humiliated him, brought back a thousand unwanted memories that he had pushed away for years, or maybe . .  maybe that  _thing_ took them, which he would've been fine with, and Tim  _swore_ he would have  _nothing_ to do with Jay, crazy masked men, Alex, or the super-natural horrors that came with them.  Tim was feeling fine.  He was getting better.  That was, until Jay came along pointing a camera at everything and making him part of his little investigation, and no.  It took Jay, someone who just couldn't let go, to make him realize . .  this was someone who cared too much, when all along he was caring too little.

            But things don't always go according to plan, and it was the man wearing the hoody who also inexplicably drove him and Jay apart, hacking Jay's account, breaking into his home and showing the tape he'd been hiding on camera . .  getting it into Jay's head that it was something he _had_ to see, and it just _had_ to be _right_ after Jay's mental breakdown during their trip to their old college town.  It wasn't something he had to see, not yet.  'Liar' flashed across the screen right over the evidence of his crime.  Tim wasn't ready for him to see it yet . .

            Tim's knuckles were going white from squeezing the counter.  He was still hunched over, gritting his teeth and trying not to cry.  Twenty-five days since Jay escaped . .  Just what the _hell_ did Jay think he was going to do to him anyway with fucking zip ties and a knife?


	2. Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all down-hill from here, and yet . . . could there still be some hope even in the end?

 

#  **"Rubix Cube (Requiem)"**

 

####  Written by: 

####  Sara Hervey (aka: IzzyMarrie, or 'The Major' )

 

 

####  **NOT**  to be used without MY permission

 

#####  **Disclaimers:   ****Marble Hornets belongs to the THAC crew**

 

  
**R &R.  Enjoy** **!**

 

 _"Darkness unsettling my mind,_

 _and finding comfort in the flashing lights._

 _The static hums; drown out the silence."_

 

                  
            It was three days later, and Jay still had a lot on his mind as he erased an entire stanza of the poem he was writing.  It started out as an apology, but now he didn't even know.  Maybe a confession?  Always sleeping too much or too little, staring at his laptop screen or his phone, maybe he should erase it again and stop writing words that he'll never have the guts to show anyone.

            It was midnight, and the flickering t.v. screen was set on some cable game show network.  Bad reception, but at least it was better than silence.  He would've turned on the AC since all he wanted was some steady noise other than the occasional "Hey baby!  See somethin' you like?", but it was too cold, and he really didn't feel comfortable sleeping under his sheets, no matter how tempting they were.  He'd given up on getting comfortable at hotels a long time ago, opting to sleep in his street clothes and shoes rather than strip into his boxers or wear pajamas.

            This really was a sick game they were playing.  Tim was still ignoring the footage he uploaded, the video calling him out and saying he was going after Alex to end this once and for all.  Jay had uploaded it the day after the man in the hoody broke in and threw him the knife and gave him back his camera.  Any normal person would've just gone to the police, but in Jay's mind, he could handle this.  

            Jay remembered sitting propped up against Tim's cabinet in his kitchen, feet and hands still bound.  He spent over an hour yelling at Tim, begging him to let him go, "Give me my camera, please!", "Where are you going?  Where is she, Tim?  You can't keep me here!", "Tim, Tim!  Please!  Don't leave me here!" _._

            First night, Tim just sat in his room for hours, the sun having set long ago.  Jay was still wound up, nearly jumping at the sight of Tim entering the kitchen.  He put together a sandwich, not saying a word as he calmly placed it on a plate and went to fill up a glass with facet water.  Tim knelt down, gaze cold and unreadable as he brought the sandwich up to Jay's lips.  "Look, you can be stubborn, but I'm not going to let you starve," he said, almost as if he were reading off a script.  Jay remembered thinking how messed up this was, continuing to glare and say nothing until Tim started to get up and he shouted, "Wait!  Wait, Tim, I'm sorry . .  Can I have some water?"

            Jay's stomach started to hurt again and he curled up in a fetal position and groaned, tears starting to well in his eyes.  His parents still, in over 5 years, have never once called him.  It was always him calling, asking for more money, and he hated himself for it.  Jay barely remembered the panic after he collapsed in Alex's yard back when him and Tim made a trip to their old college town.  They were retracing their steps back from when they were part of Alex's old film,  _Marble Hornets,_  and it seemed important to also check and see if maybe they could get into Alex's old house.  They were surprised, because it was still up for rent after all these years, and when they went in, even though the place was cleared out and may or may not have had other tenants, they were still able to find some of Alex's old drawings up in the closet back from when he would scribble nonsense during a manic fit.  The faceless abomination showed up, and before he could get away, he'd collapsed and Tim was already so far ahead.  But Tim came back after realizing he wasn't right there, and he stood up to the monster.  

            The seizure was extremely painful, and he remembered in bits and pieces watching Tim struggle to stand as he stared up at that  _thing._ It was almost like seeing double, the man in the mask, and then Tim, saying, "Come on Jay!  There's no way it can take on the three of us!"  Although, now that he thought about it, he probably imagined that last part.  Tim helped him up, and he sort of remembered what happened next.  Tim setting them both up in a hotel, Tim feeding him something . .  the moments were hazy.  Something that stood out though was when Jay realized, he couldn't even remember what his parents looked like anymore, and he still didn't.  At that time, he didn't remember what their number was either, and he sat on the bed in a daze staring at the wall when Tim walked in with two packs of beef jerky and some water bottles.  "Jay?  What's wrong?"  "I can't remember their faces.  I can't . . "

            Jay clutched his face and choked, "Come on!", shaking his head as he bit his lip.  Jay didn't understand, what was Tim waiting for?  One of them had to make a move and soon.  They couldn't both be at a stand still much longer; it was creeping into December and despite the lack of frost, it was still getting cold.  That's why a week ago, he decided to upload the footage of himself following Tim the day after he escaped.  Jay didn't have the nerve to confront the much stronger man, and hell . .  the police were a joke. 

            Who would it help anyway by _now_  getting them involved?  What was he supposed to say, him and three other guys have been involved in stalking, breaking and entering, two of them, kidnapping, one of them for a fact, murder . .  an eldritch stalker with no face had memory wiped them at random times and sent them hurling through time and space . .  his apartment was burned down after he stupidity provoked a mentally unsound man, Alex, who he'd been pursuing out of a misplaced concern after not having contact with him for over three years . . .

            To tell the truth, Jay was embarrassed.  At first, he just wanted to handle things on his own, solve the mystery, save his old college friend that in reality, he hardly knew . .  save the girl he inexplicably found himself living next to at the hotel, spoken to only a few times during his missing seven months and just as few times after . .  But now things have spiraled so out of control that he didn't even know  _how_ to ask for help, and that's when he knew that even if he got the authorities involved, that wouldn't do much of anything when a literal  _monster_  was after you.

            In the back of Jay's mind, he was holding onto the footage of him following Tim around in the hopes that maybe . .  just maybe Tim would call him back?  Leave a tweet or video, something?  Jay didn't know what he was hoping for.  After-all, Tim did tie him up and hold him hostage for two weeks, even used him as bait.  He'd filmed himself leaving the door unlocked and saying where he was going after tying up Jay and lecturing him about how his pursuit of Jessica had to stop, that his filming of everything would just get her involved all over again.  He stole his camera, locking it up probably in his car after filming himself about to drive away.  But Tim didn't drive away, instead walked right back in, to Jay's utter confusion, uploaded and edited the footage, and briefly explained his intentions before calmly walking to his room and shutting the door.

            Jay was crying, hating himself for crying, crawled into himself like a damn fetus, only unlike a fetus, he'd had his chance to live his life and chose to waste it away on stupid pursuits and oh God . .   what would his family think of him now?  Do _they_ even remember him?

            At that very moment, Tim was striking the strings of his old guitar while sitting and watching a blank t.v. screen.  He stopped after hearing a wrong note, re-tuning and plucking the string until he was satisfied.  Something was on his mind, but he was trying his best not to think about it at that moment.  In fact, the last couple of days he had stopped going into his kitchen all-together, just so he wouldn't have to look at the zip ties he still hadn't gotten around to cleaning up.  He purposely avoided looking at the mirror in the hall, too, the message 'LAST CHANCE' written in sharpie by the man who threw Jay the knife in order to free him, and wrote the message in order to goad him.

            Too much was on his mind lately, and it was getting harder and harder to just push it away like he had before.  Jay wasn't thinking, as usual, and he would've been better off skipping town back when he had the chance all those years ago but no, he had to be drawn back into the mystery when him and that hooded creep kept pushing him, and then Alex came and found out where he was staying and begged him to help him find his girl friend Amy, and then that girl Jessica . .  she had to be brought into this mess too, all the while, Jay kept getting hurt over and over again and she . .  Tim could only hope.

 _God, I never met someone so stupid,_ Tim thought.  But Tim couldn't deny it; he hated being alone, and he couldn't clean up the only evidence that someone other than him was there.  Just like how after Jay first stole the tape and left his flash light behind.  Tim never touched it.  He just . .  couldn't.

 

 

 _"Trust is something I shouldn't have,_

 _make an excuse to see you again._

 _At least I won't have another lonely Christmas!"_

 

 

            It was Christmas, and Tim didn't exactly celebrate and Jay . .  for some reason, seemed reluctant to even call his family.  Tim wouldn't push it though, understanding very well how the thing liked to isolate its victims through its constant interference.  Well, at least in his own mind, that's how he figured it worked, but a part of him still wondered whether or not Jay might've pushed others away long before any of this had started.

            It was that night, and that night only that Tim would rip the papers with nonsensical garbage from Jay's hands, insisting for the unteenth millionth time, that  _guy_  is just trying to get a rise out of him.  Jay seemed to become unhinged, insisting how the codes the hooded guy left might have some sort of clue.  Maybe _he_  knew what happened to Jessica . .  and Tim snapped, just like how Jay would snap when Tim took away his camera almost a year later.  But for now, Jay would accept the berating in favor of the season, recognizing in silence how it was  _this_  man who he would call after a terrifying dream while cooked up in his tiny hotel room, and how it was  _this_  man who never made him feel ashamed about how he would sometimes wake up and almost cry, realizing he wasn't where he thought he was.

            Awkwardly, they sat sipping gas station coffee, telling a story from their child-hood and college days until the tension became too much, and Jay went back to trying to solve the guy in the hoody's video.  Tim tried, but it wasn't really his place to say anything.  Instead, he too would set down his cup and join in the pointless pursuit of cracking the code.

            Fast-forward a year, and months had passed by since the incident at Alex's old place.  Jay wasn't the same after he had that seizure, and Tim had spent so much of his own savings post-posting their return so that Jay could recover.  Incoherent speech, that was, of course, when he even spoke, because most of the time he would just stare at the wall . .  

            Jay didn't even know his own name, where he was, and Tim had to grab him to keep him from falling over after he found Jay staring mindlessly at the wall one night after scraping up something for them to eat.  Jay couldn't remember his parents, what they looked like, their number, or that they were even called 'parents'.  Tim had to pull out Jay's phone, show him the number, and reassure him that it was going to be okay.  

            Tim shared his pills with him, his own personal life-line.  After-all, he had just recently taken his seizure medicine when standing up to that  _thing_ , and even though he had a massive headache after-wards, it eventually gave up and just vanished and so Tim figured, the pills  _must_ have some sort of effect that discouraged that  _thing_  from getting inside their heads, and that feeling only substantiated after finding Jay wandering outside almost a month later stunned, finally speaking full sentences and wondering where his camera was.

            "2 a.m. too tired to sleep, when what you want's not what you need . ."  
              
             _Wrong._

 "Don't you think it's boring how people talk?"  
_  
Brian, did you reach from the dead and possess my radio?_

         "Smack that all on the floor.  Smack that give me some more . . "

 _Yeah!  Don't think so!_

 "It's the happiest season of all . . "

            At that point, Tim just shut off his radio, frustrated that not a decent song's been played in years.  He was almost home anyway, having driven into town to pay his electric.  He was a month behind, and with his savings dwindling, he knew it was only a matter of time before he would have to find work again, that is, unless he wanted to be homeless.

            Meanwhile, Jay was hiding in the bushes again, watching, waiting . .  He missed out when Tim left, but he'd be back at some point.  Tim made the mistake over a month prior of telling Jay the address they found in his attic was a college.  Of course, Jay could've easily looked that up after he cut himself loose, but since he wasn't from that area, and the fact Google Maps wasn't always accurate and he only had a street name to go off of, it at least gave him some bit of confidence that he was heading in the right direction.  

            He remembered following Tim around on campus that second day after he escaped, and how Tim had already taken over his account and that's why he decided he would hold onto this footage.  For insurance.  That's what he told himself at the time.  Jay had drove up and parked further away, walking the path and noticing how it was a large campus with hardly any people there at all.  Most of the buildings seemed like they weren't being used, obviously abandoned for whatever reason.  He had his camera in hand as he scouted the location, and that was when he saw Tim's car parked in front of some building.  He saw how the chest camera sat in the front seat, which was a big deal for him, especially considering both of their black outs and how important it was to document everything.  

            Inside the building, there was debris everywhere, possibly water damaged.  It was huge, and as he was looking around, he saw a room on a higher floor with a large window overlooking the entrance, and there, standing at the window and slowly closing the blinds, was the man claiming to have Alex.  He yelled at him, ran up the steps, demanded to know where he was keeping Alex.  That was when he heard coughing.

            Jay thought it was Tim since Tim was prone to those deep, nasty coughs.  Jay was developing it too from his exposure to that creature, but the loud, wet coughs that often sounded like they were coming from someone about to lose their breath usually came from Tim.  That was why, when he rounded the corner and saw someone else with their hand against the wall to steady themselves, hacking out their lungs and shaking, he was surprised.  Jay called out, but the man panicked for some reason, grabbing a wrench and swinging it at him.  Jay fell to the floor and backed away, and the man looked just as surprised, even with the mask hiding his face, and he took off running.  Jay took after him, but after the man went down into a basement, he hesitated.  That was when he saw Tim running from behind some building, and going to his car to put on the chest cam.

             _When did it all come down to this?_ Jay thought, remembering the photograph of Alex's missing girlfriend, the one he's sure by now Alex must've killed.  It was flimsy, looking like it'd been folded multiple times, and Jay found it kind of sad, almost.  He wondered if at the time Alex even knew what he was doing.  Here Alex was, trying to kill them, protected by that creature that feeds off his sanity, and all Jay could think of was how he pitied him.  That was also the same day Jay found out that Tim was lying to him, and it was a cold day in his mind after he ran away with the tape, his skin prickling and a loud buzzing tone ringing in his ears.  He  _trusted_  him, and if he were lying, then he HAD to be hiding something really bad.

            Tim on the other hand, was starting to regret his decision to with-hold the tape from Jay in the first place.  He knew  _why_ he did it, just like he knew  _why_ he kept Jay at his house . .  but maybe . .  he was wrong.  Maybe he should've trusted Jay not to flip out, but then again, it was Jay's right, and he shouldn't have waited this long to tell him.  Tim pulled out a pack of cigarettes, pulling up into his drive.  Yeah, but what's done is done, and he sure as hell couldn't trust Jay to keep from doing something stupid.  But that is also Jay's right, so why the hell should he care.

            Jay let out another sigh, but then as he saw Tim pull in, he quickly ducked, heart racing like wild stallions and  _Oh no, no no . . ._  Tim stepped out of his car, slamming the door.  Jay waited a minute, not knowing what to do.  Should he run, was he spotted?  But instead, Tim just pulled out a cigarette and lit it, sticking it in his mouth as he made the march up his front porch and unlocked the door, slamming the door behind him, and Jay let out a sigh of relief.   _That was close._

Tim threw his keys across his counter, the same way he did with Jay's knife the day he came to just 'talk'.  He slumped down onto the couch.  Truth was, Tim saw both of the videos Jay uploaded, received his texts, his voice mails . .  he's just at a stand-still with his own mind at the moment, not knowing anymore what he should do.  He realized he was going to have to face all this sooner or later, but he didn't want to have to deal with it just yet.

            Tim reached behind his couch, pulling his guitar onto his lap.  Tim remembered finding that photograph of Amy up in his attic on top of a blanket.  The back of it had the message 'I have him. 79 South Creek Road', and at the time, neither knew what to make of it other than it was possible Alex was being held hostage somewhere, and that man was trying to lure them there.  But as they shuffled through his house, Jay had other things on his mind.

            Tim didn't want to hurt him.

            "Jay, what are you doing?"

            Jay had suddenly charged him, putting his hand around his throat.  He was more stunned than anything.

            "Give me the tape."

            Jay's eyes had more life in them at that moment than he'd ever seen.

            "What tape?  I don't know what―"

            "I know you have it!  Give it to me!'

             Both men struggled against the other, Tim trying to tell him to stop, but by time Tim shoved Jay off of him, the tape had already flown across the carpet and Jay scrambled to pick it up.  He really wished that he'd destroyed that tape back when he first watched it almost two years ago, but he thought he would show it to Jay at some point and at that time, Jay would understand why he kept it a secret.  

            Tim tried his best, he  _always_ tried his best, but sometimes, it just wasn't enough.  When Jay came back to his house with that knife, he already knew that Jay might've snapped already.  He unlocked the door, but ducked around the corner.  Jay also had a habit of spending too much time decoding that crazy man's videos and there he was, decoding the last one just to see a fucking word scramble 'bring knife' and he  _knew_ with as much as that guy was pitting Jay against him, that Jay would probably have one.  He wasn't wrong.

            Jay, on the other hand, understood that yes, there was something wrong with the world they were in, and no matter if they crossed the tunnel or not, or if they were warped from place to place by that monster, they were taken from their own reality from the start, seven years ago, back on the set of _Marble Hornets,_ but he didn't want to believe it, and he argued with that thought several times because it sounded crazy.  It  _was_ crazy.  They weren't in some loop of unhappiness, and it just _had_ to get better eventually!

            Their whole lives were out of tune.  "I didn't want to hurt him."  

            Tim abandoned his guitar on the couch, heading to the bathroom to take a shower.  He slammed the door, sliding down and hugging his knees at the same time Jay made a mad dash down the road.  

            "I just wanted to help."

 

  

 _"The two of us, what is left, until we reach the end,_

 _and what it holds, I hope is something worth living for._

 _Is she even out there?_

 _Is this maybe my fault?"_

 

            

            After Jay ran to his car, which was parked two streets down, he couldn't take it anymore, and so he started to drive himself to that college campus where Alex was being held captive.  Memories of Tim wearing the mask, obviously working against him, and how he was always so blind . .  Tim and his old partner, how they led him to Brian's house time and again, papers strewn across the ground, the written hint to go to the red tower back from when Alex and him were location scouting, how the doors never led to where they were supposed to and how Tim's mask lay abandoned on the door knob that somehow, upon entering, landed him hundreds of miles away in the cold, wet basement of that dilapidated building in which his friend Seth might've been murdered in, and that was when he came face to face with that monster, AGAIN, only this time it wasn't just on the tapes.  He remembered, and it was  _mocking_  him.   **"Hello,** _hello."_   Low pitch, high pitch, _IT'S NOT HUMAN!_

            Back in the tunnel, Alex smashed a man's face in four times after strangling him.  He thought he was Jay.  He wanted to do that to _him._  And to think that he spent _years_ looking for him, spent _seven_ months trying to help him find Amy after he was so determined to just move out of state and move on with his life . .  His apartment was burned down, and he was homeless, dwindling trust fund money only going so far in the years of hotel hopping and driving place to place, and he went RADIO SILENT in fear of advertising his location, but oh God he couldn't let go of his camera.  It was his life-line, his only reliable source when his mind ceased to function like a normal human being.  

            Tim in the mask, he remembered Tim in the mask tackling him when he first went to ask Brian questions, and he received a call, and that call was what tipped him off to where Brian was living in the first place and would be the same damn caller that told him to turn on the news when his apartment burned down.  He was warned not to say anything, and that the 'eyes' were watching him, and he quickly yelled, "Wait!  Wait.  What if . .  what if I have questions?  Who are you?"  

            The voice on the other line laughed, seeming to consider.  Instead, he just said, "Remain in thought," and Jay begged, "Please!  Don't!" and the voice paused, finally asking, "What would you like to know?"  But before he could ask anything, the phone clicked off, and oh God he should've got there sooner because . .   He broke in.  Jay laughed, having to straighten the wheel when he almost drove off the road.  He broke in to some guy's house he barely knew because he was obsessed with the mess he got himself into, and there were papers all across the floor, drips of blood and he collapsed, coughing so hard . .  so sick as he looked for clues, and the doctors couldn't help him with his fevers . .

            Jay was speeding, but he didn't notice.  He was too angry.  Seven months of missing memory, having to compile what he lost due to that _monster's_ attack back when him and Jessica had almost been shot by Alex, saved by Tim who was still in disguise and who tackled Alex just so they could run, and Jay was going to protect Jessica, he promised he would.  But she was gone.  She was on the tape!  Tim was being filmed by the man in the hoody hoisting her over his shoulder while he still had a broken leg from when Jay and Alex worked together to set up a ruse to lure out the masked men from 'totheark' and Tim STABBED Alex, going right past him to stab Alex.    
      
            Jay swerved.  He almost hit a deer, but he managed to keep from going in the ditch and spinning out by the pure miracle that was chance.  Jay got the rope, tied up Tim and tore off his mask, and Tim was pissed, grunting more like an animal and not even saying anything.  And Alex wanted the knife, but no!  They weren't there to hurt anyone!  Just get them to talk!  And so Alex smashed Tim's leg and Tim later carried Jessica over his shoulder and dropped her in the woods with the other guy, and then Alex came with a gun and . .   _and . ._

            On Christmas, they didn't solve the code, but later in January, Jay finally did it.  'She's out there', and God did he felt so stupid later, realizing that look on Tim's face when he shouted, "Tim!  Look!  I got it!  Does this mean . .  he knows where she is?" was guilt.  It was just guilt.  Tim went back to chase Jay out of the hotel after having his partner in crime carefully watch over Jessica, trying to once again save their lives.  

            And that's . .  when Jay understood.  Tim wasn't in the right frame of mind to just say, "Hey, you need to get out before that psychopath comes in and finishes what you started."  And yeah.  Jay started to slow down, easing his foot off the pedal.  This is what _he_ started.  It was never Tim bringing the Operator with him like an infectious disease . .  It was always Jay and his stupidity, digging the graves of himself and everyone else around him . .  He didn't need to confirm Alex's lies about finding Amy.  He didn't need to get Jessica involved.

            Seven months, gone, and he dug back through the tapes and uploaded them online, and what was his reward?  Alex coming to kill him and Jessica after he just couldn't shut up.  

            Jay pulled over on the side of the road and rested his head on his steering wheel, biting back tears.  The wind was howling, but far from crying with him.  No matter what, this wouldn't be uploaded.  It'd be cut out if he had to . .

            He started to think back to how Tim used to pacify his obsession with his camera.  Did he think he didn't notice?  Because he did.  He knew people were looking at him.  They were  _always_ looking at him.  Tim never said anything.  Tim was the one friend he had, and after everything . .  he screwed that up as well.

             Rewind to before Jay found the tape.  After they got back into town, Tim had encouraged Jay to seek help, bringing him to the same doctor he went to.  He didn't know if he'd follow up though.  He wasn't lying to Tim when he said they couldn't fit him in right away, but honestly . .  he didn't think he needed help.  After all, what kind of therapist specialized in socially inept disasters who constantly live in the fear of losing their life, losing their mind to some faceless horror that's always there when you least expect it?  

            Tim was adamant they return to his house to grab his hidden cache of pills.  They watched the video that their stalker uploaded on his channel after he finally started to feel a little better, and Tim was sure that the pills that the man stole weren't the last of what he had.  Tim didn't have another refill and was running low after sharing with Jay back after his seizure, but that wasn't Jay's fault.  He didn't _ask_ for him to share.  Of course, Jay just wasn't thrilled knowing they were heading back when Alex was hiding up in Tim's attic at some point waiting to get the drop on them―  the video their stalker uploaded was proof of that.

            If only Jay hadn't returned when he did.  He watched the tape.  He went through the tunnel, and everything had shifted.  The layout was wrong.  That place was wrong.  He tried calling Tim again, just like how he tried calling him days earlier, only this time, he was standing over the spot Jessica had ran out to after Alex led her to the tunnel.  She snatched away his gun, and the man wearing the hoody had come running back, wrestling Alex to the ground as she made her escape.  She was taken by that thing after the camera glitched, and was never seen again.  Jay called to say he was sorry, that he understood why he kept it a secret and―  _Oh god._

            Rewind to his missing seven months, was it a trick of his mind or was it real?  Jay was quietly shuffling through the woods, trying to get out before night fall, and Alex stayed behind, creeping him out to no end when he insisted that he bring Jessica with him next time, that he had something important to show them.  Tim walked out from behind a tree and Jay chased him all the way down to that tunnel.  Jay remembered all that, but he's finally piecing together jumbled bits of memories and words that before, he couldn't place.  

            The tunnel had nothing there, and Tim was gone.  Jay sat on the ground, thinking if he should follow, until finally stepping through . .  The tunnel corrupted the  tape, but after Jay reached the other side, Tim lunged at him, tackling him to the ground and taking his camera and shutting it off.  Jay was struggling against him, and Tim put his hand over his mouth.  "No, shut up and listen."  Tim took off his mask, roughly keeping Jay pressed against a tree.  "I don't think I have much time, but that  _thing_ is using us and it hacks into our brains and operates our moves like we're its puppets."

            Jay didn't know what to think, and hell, he would later forget all of this for years, but now . .  

            "That  _thing_ is using us for something!  And you're just feeding it, just like Alex."

            Nothing there was normal.  Nothing.  And God did he just wish he'd wake up.

            "You think  _we're_ the ones with something to hide?  We were warning you, right from the start, but  _you_  refused to listen."

            "You burned down my apartment!" Jay yelled, squirming under Tim who refused to let up.  "People lost their homes!  Some of them had kids!  Some of them . . were old, and they had no one!  Why couldn't you just, I don't know, come up to me and say 'hey, maybe you should just―'"  

            "Instead of laying low, you just kept uploading to your channel, and who was that helping?"  Tim backed off, but not before knocking him upside the head.  "Think about it.  That's why I threatened to kidnap you.  Time was running out, and we _knew_ he'd be there soon."  

            "Wait, so you knew that my apartment was going to be burned down and did nothing?"  Jay was hurt, flabbergasted, pissed off.  Was he really trying to say someone else did it?  And even if that were true―  "You didn't call the police?  Why?  Tell me.  That's just as bad!"  

            "No Jay, you're not listening!  You should know by now the police can't help you and we're all caught in its―" Tim started to cough, wheezing and grabbing a tree limb for support. 

            "Tim?"  

            "See it yourself!"  He put on his mask, making off to the trees.

            "TIM!"  The Operator appeared, and there was ringing in his ear as his legs gave out.

            "I CAN'T HELP!"

            "TIM!" he screamed, and Tim looked back, just for a moment before he took off running again, screaming, "RUN!!"  

            And he did.  He managed to get back up . .  only to wake up in a field hours later, dirt crunching between his teeth and his whole body tingling.

            More time wasted, more time . .  an hour, two hours, until the sun started to fall and fast forward, and Jay decided he could wait to go back.  He drove to an isolated area and pulled into an old diner's parking lot, flipping down the back seat and unpacking his blanket from the back.  He made sure to lock all the doors, and hugged himself as he watched the sun set.

            The sky was painted with a mixture of pinks, peach and blue, a beautiful display, a comfortable nostalgic.  Jay couldn't help but think of how many times he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to just sit and watch the sun go down, or even rise.  It was something he remembered doing as a kid on camping trips.  Even though he no longer remembered the face of his father, he remembered camping, one of the few times he didn't feel at odds with his dad, and how he would chase the bugs around with him and stare up at the sky in wonder as the sun fell and the moon peaked from behind the clouds.  

            "You know son, we come from the stars.  You know what that means?"

            "Not really.  Are you saying we're made of star dust?  Because in science class I learned―"

            "I'm sayin' you can make somethin' of yourself boy!"  His father fixed him with a stern look, and Jay looked down at the ground.  "In fact, anyone can, because in the end Jay, we're all here to make a livin', but even in our darkest days, son, you're still made up of somethin' special."  And that was when Jay saw the pride in his father's eyes, and he smiled.

            Tomorrow was December third.  Jay remembered the last time he was at the college, following Tim through the lower levels.  He knocked over a chair in the low lighting and quickly hid, scared he was caught, but Tim must've been scared too and that's why he ran.  Jay discovered a room, a collage of photos on the wall of Alex wearing the same clothes, facial hair in some, and none in others.  On a chair was a note.  'BENEDICT HALL.  FIND ALEX.  FIND THE ARK.'  

            Jay knew now what he had to do, or at least part of it.  He would first try seeing if the doors were unlocked, and if not, either break a window, or set up camp.  The man from 'totheark' was right.  This had to end, and this might be his last chance.  But still, in the back of Jay's mind, he couldn't help but hope that maybe when he got there, somehow things could magically fix themselves.  Maybe he could talk to Alex, maybe Tim would roll his eyes and tell him it's fine, that he's only human, and that other guy would finally take off his mask to reveal he was a friend all along, and Jay would find out Jessica was alive after-all and doing great.  Maybe his friends aren't all dead either.  After all, if their minds could magically be tampered with, why not their friendship?   _Why not my life?_

Jay grabbed his laptop, and he'd forgotten to turn it off and a blank word document sat there staring back at him.  There were some days where the blood Jay saw on the screen from the murder were so vivid, it was as if he was there, and in another time, another place, Alex was talking to his main actor, Brian, about his film, camera in hand until Brian caught Jay casually strolling by fellow cast members, squirting them with a water gun and then hiding it under his jacket and pretending like he didn't know what just happened.  Brian snatched the camera and started filming, and both men started laughing in disbelief.  Alex had said, "Jay, stop being a little shit.  Get a pump gun!  Be a man!"

            And Brian was quick to add, "He's right Jay, super soakers are the bomb.  Although, if really you're wanting to be sneaky about it . ."

            Jay at that point was shoved by Sarah, one of the actors in Alex's film and his friend Seth's cousin.  "Jay doesn't have a sneaky bone in his body."  Seth, who was led to that cold basement, Sarah, who's blood was probably what was smeared on that wall . .   Jay fondly remembered Seth's snickering sarcasm and quiet nature, even though he only hung out with him a few times.  Jay also remembered Sarah's charm and whit, her strong will and how he secretly had a crush on her for a while but was too shy to say anything.  "You could hear him coming up behind you from a mile away," she laughed, taking the water gun from him and chasing him around the court yard while Brian continued to film, Alex cheered him on, and Seth just shook his head and laughed.  

            It hurt, it hurt a _lot,_ but there was hope.

            Alex pushed the camera away from his face after Brian went from filming Jay to filming Tim to filming Alex.  That's right, Tim was there, and Sarah was at some point sitting next to him and petting his sideburns, causing him to quirk a curious brow.  Jay had just snatched Sarah's phone, and she was too busy yelling at him to give it back and him too busy making her yell because she was cute when she yelled, and Tim was too busy . .  just sitting there.

            "Hey Brian, why did you want that guy to be in the film anyway?"

            "Uh, I don't know, because you tell me all the time I like to meddle and I thought this would be a great opportunity for him to make friends?"

            A moment of silence fell between them before Alex grabbed his camera back.  "But look at the way he acts sometimes.  I don't like him.  There's something _off."_

Brian took back the camera and put it on Alex's face, and said, "No way, and think of it this way, Tim brings a certain _air_ to the set, along with a _rare_ monologue style _rarely_ seen in films these days."

            Alex pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and Brian laughed, saying, "See?   _I_ can use big words too."  The sound of Jay saying, "Oh crap!" could be heard in the background, and Brian quickly turned the camera towards him as Tim got up and started chasing the laughing man who managed to squirt him with a mysterious second gun and Brian, being Brian, was shouting, "DON'T LET 'EM BEAT YOU SOLDIER!  GET 'EM TIM!"

            It hurt, it hurt a LOT, but for the first time in a long time, Jay laughed as he cried.  College was amazing.  It was the best time of his life.  And with that, he clicked 'undo', and all the words he'd previously typed came into view.  Just maybe . .  just maybe the puzzle of their minds was like a rubix cube, and he'd just been looking at everything the wrong way.  He typed '(Not) Your Fault' at the top of his confession, and for the first time in a long time, he fell asleep with a smile.

 

 

 _****_

 _  
_

  
Tim had finally managed to rip off the man hole cover using a wrench, too afraid the night before to try more than a couple of times.  So he put on his jacket, waiting for the next day, and now here he was, crawling through the maintenance tunnels of the college in an attempt to get into Benedict Hall.  He knew that was the last building he needed to check, and after all that time waiting, after all that time being convinced he could hold it all off just a little longer, he knew that he had to make his move, with or without Jay.    

            It was December fourth, forty-nine days after him and Jay were supposed to go together, but instead, Tim tied Jay up, and the stand-still began after he came home, seventeenth day, and found Jay was set free.  Tim had a massive headache, cold chills and a prickling sensation gnawing on his wrecked nerves the night before, and before that damn _thing_ could tenderize him any further, he decided he _had_ to go find out where that man hid Alex.

            Tim wasn't even aware at first that Jay had followed him back during his second visit to the college.  Back then, all that time ago, he'd left his chest cam in his front seat so that when he approached Jacob, the man who the grounds-keeper said had the keys, he wouldn't set off any red flags.  Unfortunately, the guy didn't buy his story about having a friend who went to that college before the flood and how he was there trying to gather up his friend's old equipment.  But when Tim saw Jay's footage drawing attention to his abandoned camera, he knew.  Jay thought he was hiding something again, and at that time, he was already so aggravated with everything that he couldn't be bothered to care.

            So fast forward, and now Tim's crawling through the wet tunnels, determined to see this through to the end.  He turned off his flashlight, seeing the guy from 'totheark' dropping down from a ladder, looking around and almost shining his flash light on him.  He ran off, and Tim kept going once he thought the man was far enough ahead, and that's when he managed to find the inside of Benedict Hall.  Room to room, where was he even supposed to go?  The longer he was there, the more he feared it was a trap.  Something wasn't right.  The familiar pins and needles overtook his body and the metallic twang was tasted on his tongue, and that was when he saw Alex heading down a set of stairs.

            Tim rushed out, trying to be as quiet as he could shutting the door that was now unlocked.  He was coughing, getting sick, and by the time he reached his car, the door was fucking unlocked and his pills weren't even in his bag.

            Jay saw Tim running from the building, and he quickly turned his camera to catch him on film.  And that's when he ran, right into Benedict Hall.   _What was he? . ._

            _Damnit!_  Tim thought, they just HAD to be there, they just HAD to!

 

 

 _"The two of us, broken men, staring down a crumbling cliff,  
and if I step off . . . "_

  
            Jay turned around, and there was Alex, holding a gun.

 

 

 _"It was never your fault."_

 

 

            Tim heard a loud 'bang', and he froze for a moment before rummaging through his bag even faster.

 

 

 _"Is this maybe my fault?"_ _  
_

 

            The pain was intense, and Jay barely managed to make it into another room.

 

 

 _"I woke up the pain."_

 

 

            Alex banged on the door behind him.  Nothing but the pain was on his mind, and trying to BREATHE.

 

 _"Is this maybe my fault?  
Could it be my fault?"_

 

 

The Operator showed up, and it was **Death,** and Jay was scared, and he was―

 

 **.  
.  
.  
.**

 

  
            Hours later, the sun was down, and Tim woke up in the back seat of his car.  His head was killing him, and a heavy chill was frosting his windows.  It took him a minute to figure out where he was, and that's . .  

            That's when he rushed back into the building and saw Jay's camera.  It was like seeing a limb detached from its owner.  The bloody hand print on the wall was too unreal, because it couldn't be real―  "Oh no no no . .   Jay?  JAY!"

            But Jay wasn't there, his body missing, and so that meant, that meant he couldn't be gone, right?

            But he was, and when Jay died, his mind was flooded with feeling, not thought, and with each breath he struggled to breathe, there was a sense of resignation and a bit of happiness as well.  Tim wasn't there.  He was safe.  It's the end, but now he could join everyone and become a star.

 

 

****

 

 

            April first, an alarm clock was heralding in a blaring melody and Tim quietly acknowledged the blinking numbers.  He shut it off, and stepped out of bed.  He couldn't sleep anyway.

            He stood staring at himself in the mirror, finally taking out his shaving cream.  His beard had grown in some more, his sideburns a lot less neat and defined as before.  But in the end, he decided he'd forget shaving for the day since he still had some things he had to do.

            For instance, his house still needed to be cleaned.  Carefully scooping up the zip ties, scrubbing the words 'LAST CHANCE' off of his mirror . .  he lost his energy.

            Tim was mindlessly walking around, Jay's camera as a witness to his attempts at making things normal.  Ever since . .  Jay went missing . .  Tim had been clutching onto Jay's camera almost in the same, gentle way Jay used to when he thought Tim wasn't looking.

            Jay wasn't really missing.  He was dead.  But Tim knew he could see him, through the camera lens.

            Jay was shot, December fourth.  Tim would pick up the camera and chase the man in the hoody, only to later rewind and watch his friend die.  It wasn't supposed to happen.  None of it.  

            Tim would notice how it wasn't like before when Alex pointed the gun at Jay and Jessica.  Alex said nothing, and Jay just stood there, trembling as he said Alex's name.  It was later that night that Tim would scream, punching a hole in the wall and holding his craft knife to his throat.

            The next day, Tim didn't know why he was bothering with Jay's youtube and twitter accounts anymore, but he felt it was important to Jay, and so Jay would've wanted him to continue where he left off, and he did, the best he could, and he uploaded Jay's death.

            That was when he saw the man in the hoody's hacked tweets from the fourth, and his video from the third.  Tim almost walked away, but obsession took hold and so he spent his time cracking the codes from the tweets, a clue to the two flashing codes in the video.  

            The video was called 'Quadrant', and he could hear a voice overlapping scenes from Jay's last video saying, "Hold your formation.  Do not do this.  Hold off.  Stay put.  Everyone is going to―"  A code towards the end, 'Who am I', flashed right after the cut off sentence, and a voice at the end, "He didn't know how to leave," clashed with the final code: 'I cannot help?'

             Tim's shaking, ragged breaths turning to chokes and sobs.  But the camera's there, Jay could see him, and so he turned it away from him, wiping his nose and laughing.   _Why am I left?_  
              
            Tim watched the footage Jay hid on his hard drive, December sixth.  He never received that call.  Tim read Jay's confession, and he was numb inside.

            Later roaming the halls that same day, a shadowy figure in the distance would force him to call out, "Jay?"  But no, it wasn't him and he collapsed, coughing on his hands and knees as the man in the hoody approached him, shaking his pills and throwing the mask Tim had been hiding in his duffle bag at his feet.  Tim pushed it aside, staring up and then the tall man appeared, right behind him, right THERE, and the man in the hoody saw it too and ran, and Tim ran after him.

            Another time.  Another place.  "I guess it’s us versus him," and Jay, sitting in the passenger seat, was thumbling around with his camera.  "We can’t just turn around and quit either.  He’ll find us eventually and honestly, I’d rather go down fighting anyway."

            Skin ripping, bodies taken apart and re-arranged, sense of grounding a flickering hologram as reality laughed at the very notion of stability and logic, Tim punching the man, ripping his mask off but only seeing a glitched out projection as they were thrown place to place . .

            "It’s just gonna be really weird if it comes to that and we come out on top though ‘cause I don’t remember what all I did before this happened but―"

            "It wasn’t that long ago."

            Tim found himself at home, but it was all wrong, the message on the mirror now read 'YOUR FAULT YOUR FAULT' and Jay's body was propped up against his kitchen counter, and there he bled, sitting on top of Alex's drawings . .

            "No. Well, I do remember that I was living in a crappy apartment, by myself, doing nothing. So I guess at least now . .  I’m doing . .  something."  
             
            The other man rounded the corner, and Tim snapped.  

            "YOU!  YOU SET THIS UP!  I'LL _KILL_ YOU!"

            He ran.  The man ran, and Tim grabbed a wrench.  Benedict Hall again, and the man was holding onto a ledge on the second floor.

            Tim was now staring at his computer screen; a video he was watching was paused on a face.  

            When the man let go, he'd obviously pulled his legs forward so that when he fell, he'd fall on his back, not his legs.  Tim rushed down, grabbing his pills and pulling a tape from the man's pocket, and on that tape―

            "Brian?  Not you . .   _not you . . "_

            January third, Tim had started to work again.  He almost bought a gun.

            January ninth, he slapped together some footage to tell his side of events (leaving out so much . . ).  

            February sixth, Tim had almost forgot to upload Jay's video, but it was something those sickos needed to see.  Jay needed to be shown in that light so that people wouldn't just think he'd gone off the deep end for no reason.  They were sick.  They were all sick.  
         
             Retracing their steps, trying to find the shack they woke up at . .  screaming at Jay to run after the tall man appeared . . stumbling into that room in the hospital Brian had wrote 'HE IS A LIAR' in after he took his whole bottle of pills . . 

            Tim remembered now, different times working with Brian.  He didn't know when Brian found his medical records, but he now knew why he was mad.  But Brian saved him, and after watching the footage Brian had left for him to find in the hospital . .  Brian was cursing, dropping his camera and rushing in, and after he dragged him in the open, Tim remembered, he turned off his camera and forced him to vomit.

            Back and forth, Brian before he made his mask, pointing to his head and laughing, "The Operator is operating . . here,"  Brian tying Alex to a chair.  Brian pointing the camera at him.  "Do it Tim.  Don't refuse me.  He was going to kill you.  Hit him.  Come on Tim.  Remember what he did?"

            Brian was his best friend in college, his first real friend.  Jay was his friend too, and now that's five people that'd be here if it weren't for Alex.  "I'm so sorry," Tim said to the camera, thinking how neither Jay nor Brian would get a funeral, or Seth, or Sarah, or that man Alex killed in the tunnel . .  those who died here were taken from this place, and only those involved in the web, would remember they even existed.

            "You will be booking the room for the night."  Tim had taken off his mask, facing Jay forward.  "Do not turn around."  Him and Brian were taking care of Jay in secret, taking full advantage of the strange dimension they were in.  Time didn't flow normal there, and Jay had plenty of time to remember his name.  "You have questions," Tim said, nodding once at Brian who was sneaking footage onto Jay's hard drive.  "I have answers."  Jay wouldn't mention the encounter in his videos, because he was still too drugged up to remember it.  "I'm sorry," Tim had whispered, leading Jay to the service desk.

            It was confusing, and it was . .

            Jay was trying to explain how a rubix cube works, easily moving the pieces around and solving it in like ten minutes.  It went right over Tim's head, and when he took it and gave it a go, he became frustrated and sat it back down.

            "Uh, well, it's not always real easy to solve . . "

            "You don't say!  I honestly don't see how you do it."

            How was Tim supposed to live, when everything he believed in was shattered?  What was there even left for him?

            "Well, I just . .  I just do it.  I've loved puzzles ever since I was a kid, but you know, it doesn't have to be about actually figuring it out, and even if it gets frustrating, you looked pretty funny throwing it."

            That's when Tim realized something.

            He was sitting in his chair watching his window and writing himself a mantra when he thought, _It was never our fault._  

            Valentines Day, his mother was taking up the bottle as she tried calling his father again for the eleventh time.  Tim was thirteen, only out of the institution for a month and quietly approaching his mom.  "What's this?" she asked as he handed her a card he made, and she grabbed him, shocking him at the sudden hug.  "Oh my baby . .  I love you so much.  I'm so sorry.  You're my world too, Timothy."  His mom had blamed him for years for his father leaving her, but in that moment, it was nice, knowing he was loved, and he hugged her back.

            Tim smiled, thinking how life really was like a rubix cube, getting frustrated, trying to figure out all the things that go wrong, but you can't always figure it out, and you can't always solve every problem.  But what he could do, was keep moving forward.

            "Keep moving forward Timothy.  No matter how hard life gets you down."

            Tim didn't know what tomorrow would bring, but he knew Alex would show up soon, but it didn't need to be the end, for him or Alex.  So Tim took his pen, and he continued to write.

 

  
_"There is something more.  I cannot see it yet._  
_But I keep on moving forward, in hopes I'll catch it yet."_

 

 

            And when he was finished writing, he named his poem 'Fool's March', and he grabbed Jay's camera, knowing that he wasn't watching from the lens, but with Brian and the others, up in the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note:**
> 
> You know, on a sidenote, this fanfic was really hard for me to write in the sense that the characters and their struggles had a lot of personal meaning for me. I may not have had it bad as any of these characters, but there's a lot of myself that I put in Jay especially, and even a little in Tim. 
> 
> The main part of this fanfic was me also coming into terms with the fact that life is not always fair, and what we want to happen does not always happen. Life in general doesn't have to always make sense, and if we can accept that and count the good things that happened instead of just dwelling on the bad, it's a step in the right direction. Each day with depression is a battle, and sometimes logic doesn't always win over the delusions that try their best to hold you down, but we can shift the blame and not look at ourselves, or we can accept things as they are and move forward and try and change what it is we actually can. In the end, we're only human.
> 
>  
> 
> **Bonus features:**
> 
> Songs Tim skipped on his radio:
> 
> We Kings - Just Keep Breathing (lol I hate this song too Timmy)
> 
> Lorde - Tennis Court (Poor Tim, remembering just how quirky Brian could be, thinks the only way this could end up on his radio is Brian-ghost)
> 
> Akon - Smack That (And yes, this would've been on Brian's playlist too X'D I can just imagine it)
> 
> Andy Williams - It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year (I have to admit, I'm also a grump when it comes to Christmas songs /: Sorry, just no)


End file.
